


On Foreign Soil

by Mornelithe_falconsbane



Category: Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey
Genre: Depression, Gen, Vanyel angst, Vanyel-Typical Melodrama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-03
Updated: 2016-09-03
Packaged: 2018-08-12 17:34:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7943200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mornelithe_falconsbane/pseuds/Mornelithe_falconsbane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vanyel hates everything about war, when he can summon the energy to feel anything at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Foreign Soil

There was a full moon yet to pass before Sovvan Night came, but it was freezing. Vanyel hated it. Couldn’t stand the constant cold, the layers and layers of clothes that did nothing to warm him, the endless drizzling rain--every last bit of it was terrible. The border was nothing but mud, brambles, and Karse’s thrice-cursed demons, and Vanyel hated all of it.

Yfandes’ coat was stained yellow up to her belly, and Vanyel couldn’t brush the mud out enough to make her properly sliver. His clothes had given up the ghost of white, and become a universally dull and dingy shade of brown, and Vanyel resented it immensely--the constant dampness had stretched out every item he owned, leaving him in shit-brown rags that fit him no better than a beggar’s might.

He looked like he’d rolled in shit, and then splashed it on Yfandes. _:Fucking mud.:_ Vanyel thought, barely keeping his irritation in check. _:They send us out into those fucking hills for nothing one more time and I’ll--:_

:Vanyel, love, dear heart?: Yfandes interrupted, her voice in Vanyel’s mind as weary as he felt.

He shoved the mud-caked curry comb in her saddlebags. It had only spread the dirt around, made her look like a defeated old nag--

 _:An old nag?:_ Yfandes snapped, her head swinging up, and her eyes dangerously wide and her teeth bared. _:I am not a_ nag! _:_

Vanyel sighed, and reined in his self-pity. _:Don’t mind me, love. You look lovely under all that mud. I just wish I could get it off you instead of just smearing it around.:_

She snorted and accepted that, letting her head sink back down, and this time Vanyel kept his thoughts on how very tired she looked to himself.

 _:You’re still favoring that hoof,:_ he said, looking up at the sullen clouds above as he felt the beginnings of rain on his skin. _:Did you want me to look at it?:_

 _:I’d much rather you found me something to eat,:_ Yfandes answered, the hoof in question subtly inching away from him. _:If--by any miracle--this camp has something that isn’t last year’s hay...?:_

 _:I will find it, and deliver it to you.:_ Vanyel, promised. He smiled at her, his bad mood broken. _:You’re too thin as it is. And then maybe I can look at your hoof, hm?:_

 _:It’s a bruise. Nothing you can do.:_ Yfandes’ head lifted enough to stare at him, blue eyes keen and focused. _:You should eat. It’s not just me who is too thin.:_

Vanyel shrugged, lifting her saddle over his shoulder, and throwing her bags over his other. They, too, were dingy brown, the bright blue trim so mud-caked that Vanyel expected he’d never get it back to the original shade. _:The slop they serve here could kill an ox.:_ He wasn’t that desperate. Or that hungry.

She worried over nothing. Vanyel had eaten at midday, as much of the thin and faintly muddy gruel he could stomach. Admittedly it hadn’t been much, but it wasn’t as though he was starving. “I’m fine,” he said firmly, heading uphill to the ragged collection of tents housing the Valdmaran guard at this unlucky post. The sun had almost set, darkness rolling in like a wave.

The half-healed burn lightning-seared into his side ached, and Vanyel reached out, finding a leyline and tapping it for a rush of energy to help him climb the hill. It was as natural as breathing now, augmenting his reserves with those of the land. Didn’t heal him, not in the least, but at least he couldn’t feel the pain through the crackle of magic in his ears.

The guards avoided his eyes, accepting his presence but not welcoming it. They never did. Vanyel had ceased to care. Magic couldn’t take that hurt away, but all emotion became apathy when he felt it long enough. Some days he wanted to scream at them, taunt them with his ‘unnaturalness’ until they spoke the words he knew they were holding back--pervert, criminal, disgusting--breaking that polite silence with words he could hate them for.

Naturally, Vanyel would never.

He found the field unit commander’s tent by way of elimination--it was the only mud-splattered canvas hovel large enough to stand in. Vanyel slung Yfandes’ saddle from his shoulder to his hip, and pushed inside. “Herald-Mage Vanyel,” he said, blinking until his eyes adjusted to the light. “Reporting--”

A babble of Karsite interrupted him, the men gathered over a tiny camp table covered in maps not Valdemaran guards but a black-robed priest and a Karsite captain, both scrambling away from him in abject terror.

Vanyel froze. _:Yfandes--!:_

The scent of storms broke his shock, and Vanyel summoned fire and lightning, throwing it into the men, interrupting the priest’s casting seconds before it could be completed.

 _:Did they have oats, dear?:_ she replied sleepily.

Two corpses stared up at him, their faces locked in a rictus of agony. Vanyel set her saddle on the Karsite carpets lining the floor, looking around the clearly foreign tent in growing confusion. _:We are in Valdemar, aren’t we, Yfandes?:_

He stepped back outside, knocking aside the arrows flying toward him with a wave of power. A twist of the same mass, and it lunged out to those who had shot at him, crushing their bodies into the ground. Vanyel unshielded his mindspeech, searching for others, and only found the dying thoughts-- _pain-pain-pain-no-please-_ NO _!--_ of the ones before him.

Yfandes was a soft pressure behind his eyes, and Vanyel let her see. _There’s no way--we couldn’t possibly be this far off track. I couldn’t possibly have walked into the wrong camp--it’s impossible!_

 _:Lord and Lady.:_ Yfandes thought, and Vanyel felt her disbelief mirroring his. _:You didn’t--:_

 _:I walked right in! Why didn’t they stop me?!:_ Vanyel curled his hands into his hair, gripping it until his scalp hurt. _I groomed Yfandes for an hour!_ The bodies were crumpled shapes in the dark, and he couldn’t see the blood. Vanyel smelled it, but he couldn’t see it, not without summoning mage light. It was so dark, no moon at all, he just hadn’t been able to see--

 _:Yfandes!:_ Vanyel’s thoughts crept up into a wail, and he caught it--caught himself and forced his emotions back under control. _:I seem to have killed a few Karsites. We’re on Valdemaran soil, aren’t we?:_

She came up the hill, her hooves loud in the sucking mud, a faint ghost in the darkness. Yfandes turned her head one way, then the other, taking in the crumpled lumps that had been men before Vanyel had broken them, and then plodded up to him. : _Could we make it look like demons, do you think?:_ she asked.

Valdemar didn’t attack. Valdemar didn’t _invade_. Valdemar only defended its borders--Vanyel realized suddenly that he was panting like he’d just run a race. _:Yfandes, I--:_

 _:Chosen, love, these things happen. If it wasn’t Valdemaran soil before, well--:_ an unfamiliar note of dark amusement filled her words, and Vanyel shivered _:--then it is now.:_

They were dead. They hadn’t been fighting him or trying to kill him, they’d just been settling down to the night, living the same miserable existence that he was. And Vanyel had waltzed up into the wrong damn camp and murdered them.

_:Vanyel dear?:_

His head snapped up, eyes focusing on her.

 _:I think I smell oats.:_ Yfandes tilted her head toward a tent at the far side of the camp. _:Go look?:_

Numbly, he agreed, and stumbled toward the tent. He heard her, Yfandes unable to be silent in the mud, the wet sounds of her dragging the bodies to the side of the camp echoing over to Vanyel. He sent her his gratitude, filling his palm with magelight and making it hover off his skin when his hand started shaking.

Tears were dripping down his cheeks, collecting in the corners of his mouth. Vanyel ignored them, searching the scant supply packs inside the tent. One did contain a half-full burlap sack of oats, and Vanyel collected it. He took a few withered apples from another sack--Yfandes liked apples--and knelt there, staring at the supplies that would feed the mice and rats when he left.

_:It’s done, Love. I can’t fit in the tent, but the camp is empty.:_

Vanyel nodded, stumbling to his feet--they’d went to sleep, all numb and prickling now. _:I found oats.:_

 _:And something for yourself, I hope.:_ Yfandes said sternly, at his side as soon as he left the tent, nosing the oat sack in his arms. _:We might as well stay until morning--not even a Karsite would wander a night this black.:_

 _Stay!--_ Vanyel grimaced at the thought, faintly appalled. _:I’m not hungry,:_ he replied, licking the salt off his lips. The tears had dried, and Yfandes was right. He didn’t like it, but she was right. Leaving now would be dangerous and foolish--if she hurt a leg in the dark, they’d both be stranded.

Vanyel opened the sack for her, and held it while she devoured enough oats to give a normal horse colic.

 _:In the morning, Vanyel, you must eat. Magic cannot replace food any more than fire could.:_ Yfandes lectured, nose deep in gluttony--in oats. _:It eats you, my Chosen one, not the other way around.:_

Perhaps in the morning he’d be capable of hunger. Vanyel fed her apples, one after another, and didn't think about it.


End file.
